Costa Rica has a moratorium on oil exploration in place, that was recently extended to 2021, the year by which Costa Rica intends to be carbon neutral as well.

The International Council on Mining and Metals has committed its members (including the World Coal Association) to not explore nor mine in World Heritage Sites and “respect legally designated protected areas“.

So, why keep on looking for new oil, gas and coal? In the past, the fossil extractive industries were the horse that powered the growth of our economies. A lot of money was earned and this is still the case today in this heavily subsidised sector. But this is something that will change sooner or later. The G20 have already pledged to remove fossil fuel subsidies, but continue to do the opposite: subsidising exploration with 88 billion USD per year. Besides generating diminishing returns, today’s exploration efforts push the fossil frontier into sensitive environments such as the Arctic, rainforests and the deep seas – with increasing economic and ecologic costs. Today’s newly discovered oil, gas and coal tends to be very energy intensive to extract. From a global perspective, we are spending a lot of the available (as opposed to “unburnable”) fossil reserves on exploring something we cannot use anyway. This increases the carbon bubble. This energy and money would be better invested in achieving the clean energy transition.